FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:

By LISA BACON

RICHMOND, Va., Nov. 17 ˜
The authorities are investigating whether vandals who have swept through
here in recent months, slashing tires, defacing businesses and damaging
construction equipment, were members of the Earth Liberation Front, an
environmental organization considered by the F.B.I. to be one of America’s
most prolific domestic terrorist groups.

    “Police
are trying to determine if there are any links to other incidents around
the country,” said Wade Kizer, Commonwealth’s Attorney for Henrico County.

    In September,
vandals used a corrosive cream to etch the letters E.L.F. on the windows
of 25 cars and three fast food restaurants. Lawrence Barry, chief counsel
of the Richmond division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, confirmed
that his agency was helping to investigate the incidents.

    Mr. Kizer
said he had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the calling cards supposedly
left by the Earth Liberation Front. “But it might be some local people
who have just heard of the organization,” he said.

    The group
may have struck again Saturday night, when five sport utility vehicles
had their tires slashed here. S.U.V.’s have been a target of the group
in the past.

    The authorities
said the Richmond incidents fit the profile of the group’s operations in
the United States. The group has no formal leadership, just a Web site
and a virtual press office to handle inquiries. A former spokesman for
the group, Craig Rosebraugh of Portland, Ore., once described it as having
only a shared commitment to take aim at “anyone who is destroying the environment
for the sake of profit.”

    An e-mail
message from the North American Earth Liberation Front press office said
Wednesday: “As for why Virginia, it simply means that there is an active
cell that has chosen to operate in that area. There are cells in operation
from time to time all over North America.”

    On Sept.
27 or 28, vandals used a glass-etching cream to damage the fast food restaurant
windows. Thirteen windows at each of two McDonald’s and 25 windows at a
Burger King, all in Richmond’s affluent West End, were damaged beyond repair.
Around the same time, vandals used a similar substance to scar the surfaces
of 25 S.U.V.’s at a West Richmond dealership.

    Then
on Oct. 5 or 6, as central and northern Virginia were focused on the sniper
attacks, vandals hacked two S.U.V.’s with hatchets in a suburban subdivision
and left notes on each saying it was the work of the front.

    Similar
notes had been found on July 11 when there was a string of S.U.V. tire
slashings in the city’s historic Fan District. The authorities in Goochland
County, another Richmond suburb, said that two months ago the front may
also have been responsible for the destruction of construction equipment
and damage to the interior of a house being built in a subdivision. A burned
American flag and a message about environmental concerns were found at
the scene.

    The Earth
Liberation Front press office said it was unaware of the Virginia vandalism
until a reporter filed an inquiry via e-mail.

    “We have
received no statement of claim for those actions at this press office,”
it said, “so we are not able to pass along the motivations of these acts,
other than to say that they are in keeping with other E.L.F. actions that
have targeted pollution, roads and vehicle culture through attacks on vehicles
such as S.U.V.’s.”

    E.L.F.
began in England in 1992 as an offshoot of Earth First, an environmental
advocacy group. While Earth First promotes mainstream ecological campaigns,
elves, as they are often called, take a more direct approach, sabotaging
research, burning buildings and placing spikes in trees to fend off loggers’
chainsaws. The group says it has caused $50 million in damage in the United
States.

    The group
first went to work in the United States in 1996, claiming responsibility
for the torching of a Forest Service truck in the Willamette National Forest
in Oregon. Within a few months, the group said it had joined forces with
the Animal Liberation Front to destroy millions of dollars in commercial
and government buildings and research. In 1997, the two groups burned wild
horse corrals overseen by the Bureau of Land Management in Oregon, causing
nearly a half-million dollars in damage to structures and equipment. The
next year, the front claimed responsibility for the largest act of eco-terrorism
in United States history, burning three buildings and four ski lifts at
a Vail, Colo., resort. Damages were estimated at $12 million to $24 million.

    The group’s
actions do not always succeed. In an October 2001 firebombing at a Federal
Bureau of Land Management corral near Susanville, Calif., vandals caused
about $80,000 in damage but failed to free the 160 horses. The group has
set minks free from mink farms, only to see them run over by cars. After
one such raid in Sweden, when group members painted minks’ fur so that
they would be useless to profiteers, the minks died of exposure.